Columbia Business School

As several people asked me how I was doing and how it is in New York, I thought I'd give some insights on some topics starting with this one:

Columbia Business School: (not actually this building)

Now I really understand why people pay a fortune to go back to school for an MBA. 

It is definitely for networking purposes and honestly the people at the Business School are great!

They are open-minded, come from various backgrounds and are very easy-going. They proof that the "student syndrome" does earn its name... people do the minimum amount of work at the latest point of time possible to hold the deadline and to maximize fun and social networking - awesome strategy! Every Thursday they have the MBA Happy Hour which is comparable to the HEC Paris POW (Party Of the Week) - although to a certain degree it might be a bit more sophisticated as they also serve free food....

Many people in Columbia Business School have a Finance and/or Consulting background, but compared to the German Business students a.k.a. "BWL"er, I do not think they are snobby, arrogant or overly competitive at all and that is what I like about the atmosphere here so far. I mean, of course they are ambitious, have high expectations and are perfectionists, but this actually creates a very positive effect why people feel motivated to be a part of.

Taught using case studies, my MBA courses so far have been interesting. For instance, in one of my classes we talked about a Happines Study, in which the professor conducted a huge survey in various countries to assess diverse factors (e.g. believe in god, having kids, employment, mariage, money) and their influence on our happiness. Apparently, we are the unhappiest between the age of 24-65, this might have something to do with the fact that people normally work during this life period. Having listened to this, it just strengthens my decision to NOT work for a company haha.

Unfortunately, I must admit that overall I have been a bad student so far. I just cannot leave my laptop in my bag and pay attention to someone talking in front of me. Not even the Harvard Professor on Social Organizations was able to catch my attention entirely... I just realize that maybe listening to someone for two hours is just not my cup of tea...

Oh yeah one observation I made during class which I would like to share:

So during the class where we were talking about the happiness study, the professor explicitly asked us to shut down all laptops (oh my...), so we all (kind of) ended up paying attention. At some point my neighbor slipped a little note to me and we kind of started talking using paper and pen, and the neighbors on my other side were playing hangman - wow that definitely brought me back to highschool memories and I had to smile because I was sitting in a class with top-class invest bankers from Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Goldman and consultants from McKinsey and BCG but I suppose in the end we are all but humans and enjoy some little paper mailing and hangman games :)